


Like A Child

by stagnation



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:24:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stagnation/pseuds/stagnation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were two things Marie Schrader would not tolerate in her household, and they were untreated guests and an ignorance to what was actually happening within the walls of it, not knowing what was going on. Maybe they went in that exact order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeryy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeryy/gifts).



The plate gets set down with a light clack, almost with reverence.

There were two things Marie Schrader would not tolerate in her household, and they were untreated guests and an ignorance to what was actually happening within the walls of it, not knowing what was going on. Maybe they went in that exact order.

She’d had plans, upon first getting accustomed to this situation, she had a Tupperware container of leftover lasagna in the refrigerator, she’d had ideas of microwaves and plopping down the thing in front of the little degenerate, a flourish and a thump of plastic against the countertop before she’d hand him a fork and be on her way. 

That was an hour ago, before she found herself confined to the kitchen, like hell was she going to find herself sequestered to anywhere else, Heaven forbid, the bedroom where she couldn’t hear anything. It would be a dark day before Marie would interfere with one of her husband’s investigation, she trusted his instincts so innately, but far be it from her to pass up a little eavesdropping, especially when it came to him.

That Pinkman, that _Pinkman_ , it had been a name that had bounced around their household for so long and gone through so many stages of metamorphosis that she hadn’t been too sure what to expect from the man, once he’d woken up. Boisterous, she’s expecting, maybe; dangerous, like the lot of the people Hank’s usually going after. Animalistic.

What she gets instead is a fragile kind of child, and she does mean child, when she sees him sitting so quietly at her breakfast bar, bent over the lasagna, picking, not really eating. His face is still pink, splotched, streaked with tears he keeps intermittently swiping his hands at, like a child. He holds the fork awkwardly, leans over onto his elbows onto the table surface, like a child. He’s wearing that ridiculously mismatched shirt, too big for him in places and strung over a scrawny little body, like a child.

It’s about the time she sees Jesse Pinkman barging into her kitchen in a fluster, cutting out in the middle of his testimony, hands over his face and eyes pinched shut, his shoulders heaving from aborted sobs that Marie decides the kid’s earned himself a plate. 

He looks like a deer, she imagines when they lay eyes on each other then, like a frightened little fawn and she could likely eat him alive, the state he’s in. It’s why her entire demeanor shifts, and she pulls out a stool at the counter for him.

“I just need a minute - “

“I never did get you that lasagna. Sit.”

Predictably, he does as he’s told.

It’s quiet, with the buzz of the microwave humming lowly in the background, this Pinkman boy wiping his wrists incessantly against his face, his cheeks, his nose, before Marie hands him a box of tissues with his reheated lunch. Like a child. Maybe it’s this unheeded maternal side of her that she only gets to flex with her niece and nephew, re-awoken at the sight of Jesse Pinkman crying in her kitchen - Jesse Pinkman, Jesse Pinkman, he’s never just his name, just Jesse, he’s the full title, Jesse Pinkman, like an honorific, like a product name rather than a human being.

Sitting in her kitchen here and now, he looks painfully, awfully human to her. Devastated, really, like the people you see as victims of natural disasters on the news, like a warning label on a bottle of pills, Jesse Pinkman. 

She’s only heard bits and pieces amongst what she’s slowly been clicking together herself, the entire thing puzzle pieces of alternating brands and pictures and shapes that she has to combine into one, big idea, the same one she’s loath to wrap her head around. Maybe he’s killed just like her brother in law has, maybe he’s hurt people, maybe he’s never sold Walter White a gram of marijuana in his life. She knows he’s involved. She knows he’s thoroughly involved, the last piece they actively need.

Can’t fit a piece in if the sides are all torn and shredded.

This isn’t the face of somebody who wants to talk more, who wants to be fed more bullshit and potential problems and additional thoughts and ideas. He’s talked enough today, but Marie finds herself sitting on the stool directly beside him. Like him, her elbow goes on the counter so she can regard him quietly. Equally predictably, his hackles go up. But she doesn’t want to coax the injured animal out of its cage, she hasn’t the training and it’s really not her place to know, at the end of the day, curiosity be damned. She just wants to assuage it a bit. 

The lasagna’s not that frozen cooked shit, it’s the real deal. She has a feeling, he’s got a look about him like he could have used a good home-cooked meal. Well, deli-cooked. There’d been talk of a Great Casserole Incident of ‘99 and she had hardly touched the stove since, but it was the closest thing he was going to get, all things considered.

“It’s not cold, is it?”

He shakes his head.

“Because if you need it heated up anymore, it’ll just be a quick second - “

“Mrs. Schrader - “

He knows her name, at the least, speaks to her politely even when his voice barely comes out in a croak. The fork turns in his fingers, idly. No eating, just picking away, picking away. His smile is tight and watery and forced. He knows he’s intruding.

“Don’t feel uncomfortable.” Less of a demand than it is a prompt, a suggestion. She strays from his name, Jesse, further; Jesse Pinkman is still That Boy, even so close to her as he is now, so tangible. “Our home is open to you as long as you need to stay.”

“But I bet you still locked up the jewelry just in case, right?” It’s almost a joke, tired and worn thin.

Marie clears her throat, and touches her fingers subconsciously to her admittedly expensive earrings. Smart boy. She opens her mouth to rebut, the lie caught in her throat.

“He really hurt your family,” comes unexpectedly next, in a small kind of voice that she’s come to expect from Jesse Pinkman; cagey, unsure. “Didn’t he?”

It’s Marie’s turn to smile this time, delayed a beat or two before it’s across her face like a flourish, slides easily into that flat-lipped reassuring bit of a thing that she’s gotten too accustomed to lately. He’s looking up at her just as guarded as her tight lash of a smile is, and all she does is rub a hand against the high part of his back.

He simultaneously stiffens and melts into it like he’s been starved for affection for however long, a stutter of a feeling underneath her fingers as she smooths them as reassuringly as she can manage across his shoulders. 

His face drops into his hands for a long while like he might cry again, so she keeps her hand there, a steady point for him to use as an anchor.

“Eat your lasagna,” she tells him after a long few beats of silence, coaxing him out of his ball with a simple request, and miracle upon miracles, he actually brings himself to take a bite out of it, nods a few times as though he approves. “It is good,” she adds. The lasagna, she means first, and then she changes her mind. “What you’re doing.”

She doesn’t expect him to answer, and so she starts to raise off of her stool. Leave the boy alone for a while with him and his heavy grief. She makes it to the doorway before she hears him call from his seat. 

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Schrader.”

Knowingly, lightly, her fingers rest against the door jam, and she turns back to him briefly just long enough to speak.

“Eat your lasagna, Jesse.”


End file.
